


Splatter

by TsarinaTorment



Series: International Rescue & Relief [14]
Category: Thunderbirds
Genre: Alan is also there but does nothing, Brothers, Family, Gen, Painting, irrelief, passing the blame, wee tracys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-15
Updated: 2020-04-15
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:20:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,121
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23664517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TsarinaTorment/pseuds/TsarinaTorment
Summary: Scott was going to regret leaving him to handle Gordon alone, especially when paint got involved.
Relationships: Virgil Tracy & Gordon Tracy
Series: International Rescue & Relief [14]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1671880
Comments: 3
Kudos: 18





	Splatter

**Author's Note:**

  * For [weirdburketeer](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=weirdburketeer).



> A fanfiction written for #irrelief, using two prompts: "Little Virgil & Gordon" from weirdburketeer and "Virgil trying to teach a brother how to art" from melmac78 (who for some reason AO3 refuses to tag)

Nine year old Virgil eyed the paper in front of him critically. It was almost done, almost perfect. Just one more dab of paint… _there_. His hand retreated and he nodded, satisfied, before movement caught his eye and reflexes honed by necessity caught questing, paint-covered, fingers as his menace of a younger brother reached out to deface his newly completed art.

"Gordon!" he complained at the five year old, who grinned back at him mischievously. "What are you _doing_?"

"Painting!" he said gleefully, holding up two hands covered completely in a rainbow of colours. With some despair, Virgil could see that damage had already been done – unsupervised, Gordon had managed quite an impressive array of handprints along the furniture and newly wallpapered walls.

Why was their demon brother unsupervised?

"Scott!" he hollered up at the ceiling.

"Scott's busy!" Gordon chirped, smearing his paint-smothered hands on the table and narrowly missing Virgil's completed artwork. It was still too wet to move, and Virgil's own fingers were paint-smeared and needed a wash before he touched it again anyway, therefore it was – somewhat – simpler to instead relocate the slippery creature he was apparently related to.

" _Why_ is Scott busy?" he asked, hoping said brother would appear and take the five year old away before any _more_ paint ended up where it shouldn't.

"Homework!" Gordon grinned, flailing his hands around. Globs of paint flew through the air, one landing squarely on Virgil's nose. He swiped it away irritably, only for Gordon to point and laugh.

He still had paint on his fingers. And now on his face.

"SCOTT!" he yelled, as Gordon giggled insistently. "JOHN!"

"What?" Scott's voice finally floated down to him, sounding distracted. John, predictably, didn't answer. His nose was probably buried in a book, rendering him deaf to the world. It wouldn't be unusual.

"Gordon's being a pain!" he complained. With Mom and Dad taking Alan for a check-up, Scott had been left temporarily _in charge_ and, in Virgil's opinion, was doing a thoroughly poor job by shutting himself up in his room and letting Gordon run wild.

"I'm doing homework!" Scott shouted back. "You play with him!"

A door shut upstairs, signalling the end of the conversation. Virgil fumed silently at him for a moment, before realising that Gordon wasn't giggling any more. He looked around frantically, and found him raising a single, colourful, finger immediately above his finished artwork.

"No!" he snapped, leaping at his brother and forcefully dragging him away. Brown eyes looked up at him hopefully.

"I want to paint!" he declared, emphasising his demand with a sticky finger jabbing at Virgil's cheek. "Let's paint!"

Virgil looked at his already paint-covered brother, glared up at the ceiling where his elder brothers had both willingly abandoned him to this fate, and then grinned.

If Scott wanted him to play with Gordon, he would play with Gordon. After all, Scott was in charge and he was just doing as he was told.

"Okay," he agreed, picking up his paints and taking them over to the kitchen floor, along with some vaguely paint-free paper. "I'll show you how to finger paint." Gordon's ever-present devil's grin was out in full force.

"I already _know_ how to finger paint!" he declared, splatting his hand down in the vague vicinity of the paper, leaving another colourful mess on the floor. "See!"

"No," Virgil corrected him, leading him to the sink and washing the worst of the paint off of his hands as best he could. Gordon wriggled, not unhappy with the water, but disappointed to see swirls of colour running down the drain. "First, we need clean hands." He washed his own as well, using his bigger size to keep Gordon pinned in place until his hands were also acceptable. "And dry ones, otherwise the paint will get too runny."

The towel was accepted with poor grace, Gordon more interested in slapping wet hands on Virgil's clothes instead. Virgil persevered, however, and soon had Gordon sat cross legged on the floor, in front of the paper and paint, with clean, dry hands. He sat down next to him, keeping most of the paint out of reach.

Gordon lunged for the paint in reach, dabbing his fingers in with precision until each finger (and thumb) had a different colour on, before he lurched for the paper and slammed them all down at the same time. Virgil winced.

"That's how _babies_ finger paint," he protested, looking at the hand prints rapidly forming as Gordon mixed the colours on the paper with abandon. "I'll show you how to do it properly."

Gordon looked at the mess on the paper – a purple-brown concoction, for the most part – and then at his fingers.

"Clean your hands again," Virgil told him, picking up another bit of paper. Gordon wiped his hands vigorously on his clothes – freshly applied, the paint transferred readily to the fabric. "Properly, Gordon. Or no more painting." The blond menace pouted, but dutifully scrambled onto the stool to reach the sink again.

As the water gushed out of the taps, Virgil placed his clean paper over the mess Gordon had made, pressing down on it carefully and holding it there until he was satisfied the paint had stained it before pulling it away.

The water was still running.

"Gordon," he said, and with a giggle the boy finally shut off the tap and hurriedly wiped his hands on the towel again before skidding back to his side on his knees. "Look." He carefully dipped a single finger in the green, before dabbing towards the top of the area. "Leaves!" Gordon's eyes brightened, and he jabbed a finger in the blue before making swirls at the bottom of the paper.

"Water!" he said. "Look." A wonky circle took up a hand's-width of the paper, before a single skinny finger trailed a blue line from it all the way to the edge of the paper, and onto the floor. "A lake with a river!"

Virgil grinned.

"You do the water, I'll do the plants," he said, and Gordon nodded enthusiastically. "Look, if you use darker and lighter colours, it looks better." Finding a dark green and a yellow paint, he dabbed at his green splotches. Gordon watched with wide eyes before smearing a finger with the darker blue and slapping it in the middle of his lake.

"It's deeper in the middle!" he declared. "Where the fish swim."

"And brighter at the top, where it sees the sun," Virgil added, using his yellow to give little highlights to the top of each leaf. Gordon frowned, looking at the paint colours, before taking a little bit of blue and adding some white to mix it together for a pale blue. Virgil added a little more, for better contrast, even though his interference was met with blue paint on his shirt as Gordon pouted, and once the blond was satisfied he added the lighter colour to one edge of his lake.

Then he smeared yellow on his finger and added in small blobs with spikes to both the lake and the river.

"Lots of fish!" he said proudly, before using the orange unbidden to give the spikey blobs darker patches, and then the white for whiter patches "on top!"

Virgil laughed and let him be as he focused on his own leaves, adding in a bright red caterpillar to offset all the greens and blues. Gordon also stole some red for more fish, and green for a frog, and by the time a car could be heard in the driveway, their woodland lake was full of creatures.

At the sound of the car, Gordon froze and looked around, as did Virgil.

The kitchen was a mess, large parts of the floor covered in paint. It was going to take a lot to clean, and Mom and Dad would not be happy. A lithe, paint-covered hand, found the plastic palette of paint and with a Cheshire cat grin, Gordon flipped it face down.

"Whoops," he said, gleefully. Virgil stared at him in horror, knowing that was one more thing that would upset their parents, before remembering why he'd ended up painting with Gordon, of all the messy creatures.

He grinned back at Gordon and gestured up the stairs. Brown eyes met brown eyes, and a matching look of mischief came over his own face.

"Not our fault," he whispered. A devious trouble maker already, it didn't take Gordon long to catch on.

"Scott!" he giggled quietly, and as voices sounded outside the house, Mom and Dad getting out of the car, they crept upstairs and into their bedroom. Paint-covered hands muffled giggles as they sat on the floor and waited.

They didn't have to wait long.

"SCOTT CARPENTER TRACY!" Dad's voice boomed out. "GET DOWN HERE THIS INSTANT!" There was a sudden scuffling from the room next door, sounding suspiciously like a chair falling over, before the door opened.

"What is it, Dad?" Scott called.

"I said GET DOWN HERE!" Dad repeated, and Virgil and Gordon had to hold their breath not to be overheard as their eldest brother tramped down the stairs loudly – before the noise stopped suddenly.

"What-" Scott started, only to be cut off.

"Your mother and I were gone two hours, Scott. You promised you didn't need the neighbours to watch you, so _why_ is the house covered in paint?"

"Virgil was the one painting!" Scott protested. "It's got nothing to do with me!"

"Not just Virgil, judging by the amount of blue and yellow on the kitchen floor," Mom interjected. "You were supposed to keep an eye on your brothers, Scott, not hide from them in your room."

"I was doing my homework!" Scott protested.

"The same homework you told me you didn't have so you could definitely watch your brothers?" Mom replied, and there was silence. Virgil and Gordon stared at each other, wide-eyed, then jumped as their bedroom door opened.

John slipped in, rolled his eyes at the pair of them, then settled on the floor by the window with his book.

"Get paint on me or the book and I will kill you," he said firmly. "I am not dealing with Storm Scott."

Virgil nodded, although wondered why John would come _here_ to escape, then turned his attention back to the altercation downstairs.

"Now, you are going to go upstairs, change into your painting clothes, and then clean this up," Dad was saying firmly.

"But I didn't do it!" Scott protested, loudly and furiously.

"Your responsible brothers will be helping you, don't worry," Mom told him.

"But why do _I_ have to clean up _their_ mess?" Scott demanded.

"Because this happened while you were supposed to be supervising them," Dad said. "If you want us to leave you without bringing in the neighbours, you need to start taking responsibility. Now get moving – I can't start dinner until this kitchen is spotless."

Heavy footsteps stomped their way up the stairs, and Virgil and Gordon both flinched as their bedroom door slammed open, irate brother glowering at them through puffy red eyes.

Instantly, some of Virgil's glee at payback for Scott abandoning him to Gordon faded. Even Gordon seemed a little subdued.

"Sorry, Scott," Virgil said before his brother could start shouting at them. "I didn't think they'd be that mad at you."

"Have you _seen_ the state you left it in?" Scott demanded furiously. "I _trusted_ you to keep Gordon busy just while I finished my homework, and then you go and do this? Mom and Dad will never trust me again!" The rest of Virgil's satisfaction fled, and he looked down at his bedroom floor – and the paint that marred it.

"Sorry, Scott," Gordon echoed, standing and giving his brother a hug, puppy dog eyes in full force. Scott glared down at him, and Gordon started to sniffle, eyes welling with water.

"Well we're not getting dinner until it's cleaned up," John sighed, slotting a bookmark into his book and laying it on the windowsill. "Yell later, clean now. I'll help." So much for not dealing with Storm Scott, Virgil thought.

Scott snapped from wavering at Gordon's tears, and shooting death glares at Virgil, to fix John with a surprised look.

"You are my favourite brother," he said, whole-heartedly. "Why did Mom and Dad ever give me more?"

That stung, a little, but then Scott ruffled Gordon's hair, shook his head at Virgil with a small smile, and headed out the door with the blond boy still attached.

Hoping that meant Scott wasn't _too_ mad, after all, Virgil followed, finding a smile of his own as Scott realised Gordon was still covered in paint… which meant his own clothes were now covered in paint.

**Author's Note:**

> IRRelief is an amazing idea and bless Gumnut for coming up with it! For those that don't know, it's a collection of prompts anyone can add to and use on tumblr, with a focus on fluff, to give us something to do while we're stuck indoors. [Full details are here](https://nutty.gumnut.net/irrelief/)


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